


Gasoline Dreams

by shipwrecks



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Arson, Episode: s11e05 Mac & Dennis Move to the Suburbs, Gen, Murder, Rage, Violence, casual title changes, ironic bryan adams usage, the usual dennis stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-12 23:36:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13557972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipwrecks/pseuds/shipwrecks
Summary: He didn't think he was actually going to go through with it, had always imagined if he did, he'd be much more removed. Methodical.





	Gasoline Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> this is for haemophilus, who deserves a better dark dennis than mine but no one else stepped up so here i am. hi sunny fandom! i can't believe THIS is what i'm posting first, but it takes a lot of the pressure off the other project i'm working on tbh. i...should be ashamed of myself, but if the gang has taught us anything, it's to be comfortable in our own skin, and maybe i never have done a bad thing because i have a lot of skin

**three.**

It was supposed to be clean.

_"'Cause I had to slit the guy's throat who causes all the traffic!"_

_He can see which car it is, merging like an idiot (SAVAGE!IDIOT!!) and making them all pile up in some endless vehicular nightmare, going fucking nowhere. Not today. Not anymore. Dennis merges—Politely, Appropriately, and Quickly—until he's close behind him. He fails again to correctly merge into the exit lane. Dennis does not. He follows him until finally—pulls into a gas station. Perfect._

He didn't think he was actually going to go through with it, had always imagined if he did, he'd be much more removed. Methodical.

_He swings into a parking spot a little fast, and the guy (IDIOTSAVAGE!) is heading for the restroom. Even better, and Dennis smiles, creepy and earnest. He heads for the trunk. For his tools._

_Dennis keeps a basic toolkit in his car at all times: duct tape, zipties, rubber gloves, a hammer (you never know), and a boxcutter. It was this last item that he reached for, unsheathing the blade as he brought it closer. It shines, his reflection looking back at him. He looks good, he doesn't think it's bragging to say. Just honest._

_Serendipity is in the eye of the beholder. This is especially true if you are emerging from a gas station bathroom, barely with your fly up and not even looking in the direction you're walking in, while another approaches the very same encounter with rage in his eyes and a smile on his face. And a boxcutter in his hand. It's easy for Dennis to shove him back against the wall, doesn't even have to look him in the eye. He feels an odd weight to his arm as it raises with the blade, so close to him, to a major artery. It feels as if he's directly in control of his arm and yet also somewhere else, controlling this self from afar. He makes a decision._

_Like cutting a big, thick stack of paper that strains against you, says no, don't, and stop, says nothing anymore._

Blood runs thick and dark down his hands. It was supposed to be clean.

 

**two.**

_You ever been in a storm, Wally?_

The Range Rover is a mess and he's sure he's never going to get this one particular spot on the dash out that will be extremely noticable to potential buyers. He's irritated and it's making him feel trapped. He presses down on the gas in an effort to blast some cool air through the windows, and he's rejuvinated by the speed. So what, he'll have to break out the nail polish remover...that would work, right? Dennis was always seeing stuff about its many uses, this had to be one of them.

_I mean, a real storm? Not a thunderstorm, but a storm of fists raining down on your head._

He slams on the brakes as he skids into Wally's lawn, basically where he was aiming. He gets out with an electricity already racing inside him, a jolt that propels him forward and through the front door, unlocked, these families far too trusting of the people who live next to them, who could be anyone.

_Blasting you in the face. Pummeling you in the stomach._

He finds Wally in the living room, starts unbuttoning his shirt as he talks, booms about storms and fists, feels stretched to his very edges, bigger than himself and ready to ignite. Wally needed to see DENNIS™ at his most stark and true, purely and only the god he knows is inside him.

_Hitting you in the chest so hard you think your heart's gonna stop._

It's easier the second time, Dennis thinks about himself telling students, diligently taking notes of everything he said. He thinks about a young freshman co-ed in the front row, hanging onto every word, deeply impressed because he is very impressive. She's pretty hot. A solid 8.5, but then, everyone can't be a 10.

It's easier to corner him and push him down and punch punch face face chest Punch chest punch PUNCH. A symphony of bruises and blood. Wally is trying to say something, it sounds like he's asking why. Because! Dennis feels like he could sing, Because! I Want To And I Can And I Will.

_You ever been in a storm like that, Wally?_

He screams in his face, busted and bleeding, then abruptly, he stops. Wordlessly, removes himself from Wally, puts his clothes back on, and leaves the way he came in. Walks towards home with his eyes blazing, can only hear his chest pounding, keeping time for him.

 

**one.**

Dennis walks into the entryway and when Mac doesn't immediately greet him, he's grateful. There is too much blood that isn't his all over him. He goes to wash it off in the kitchen sink, watches the blood run down slowly.

_Dennis keeps a basic toolkit in his car at all times: duct tape, zipties, rubber gloves, a hammer (you never know), and a boxcutter. Dennis, at this particular time, also had a gas can and three quarters of a bottle of tequila in his trunk. He grabbed both of these items. He pulls the cap off the tequila—tosses it, isn't going to need it—and takes a generous swig._

Mac's upstairs, in the bathroom, Dennis can hear him poorly singing something that was already horrible. It makes him give an incensed sigh, like this was just what he needed, after the day he's had. Not today. Not anymore. He heads back out for something from the Range Rover.

_He pops the top off the gas can and upturns it, dousing the place in gasoline as he has another pull off the tequila._

_Hugh's giving a hell of a walkthrough. What it's like to be deep inside a real big house._

Dennis had taken precautionary measures for such an event like the one that is occurring now. One of these measures was switching around the handles of the doors. He'd done this before, so he knew Mac wouldn't notice it once again.

Click, just the smallest, neatest noise, and the bathroom was locked from the outside.

_When he runs out of gas, he pours the rest of the tequila over the floors and the countertops and the furniture and everything's shiny and slick. He walks out the front door, an emergency cigarette he'd stashed away hanging between his lips. Once he's outside, he lights it and takes a deep inhale, fire already starting in his lungs. He smokes it down to just about the filter, close but—he flicks it through the door and with its last breath, hits the floor and everything's alight._

 

**boom.**

He admires his work from behind the door of his Range Rover, flames engulfing the house until it's a palace of fire, hot and bright. Smoke stretches and curls up towards the evening sky, the whole scene looking like one giant orange neverending mass. Dennis is suddenly thankful he gave the realtor a fake name, and when he considers that being his immediate thought, there's a deranged chuckle underneath the starting engine. He peels out of the neighborhood at a cool 90, ready to sustain that speed all the way back to Philly. He turns on his stereo and Bryan Adams begins to serenade him, like he should on a commute.

 _Baby, you're all that I want_  
_When you're lying here in my arms_  
_I'm finding it hard to believe, we're in heaven_

 

 

 

**epilogue.**

Sometimes, when he spreads out a bit and gets particularly comfortable in the California king bed, he can hear Mac pounding on the door, rounding out the melody of the smoke detector and pool filter, the strike of the match like a snare drum.

Sometimes, he can't.

**Author's Note:**

> so.....dennis sure is a funny bad man, huh. i love exploring alternate endings to episodes where dennis gives in to the Impulses, ama!


End file.
